Things I Know
by Beloved-the-Fool
Summary: Gillian and Cal know things about one another. They've been keeping tabs.
1. Gillian's List

**_A/N: This little thing is an idea I've had percolating for ages. It's a notion several of us have touched on or out-right mentioned in some of our stories from time to time. I've mentioned it. I know a few others have. For absolute certain, solveariddle recently did overtly mention it because it was her overt mention of this concept in chapter 4 of At That Time of the Night that prompted me to get off my writerly, procrastinating backside and finally write the thing._**

**_Part one was super-simple to write, mainly because the show writers gave us loads of material from which to pull, and I only had to fabricate some of the items._**

**_Part two was considerably more difficult because of the dearth of material from which to pull. I was, therefore, required to fabricate more regarding Gillian; but it needed to be semi-believable fabrications, you know?_**

**Rating is T simply for a little bit of sweariness.**

**Disclaimer: not mine, never mine, should be mine.**

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He doesn't celebrate his birthday but secretly likes having it acknowledged in subtle, indirect ways by the people closest to him. Only Emily can get away with direct acknowledgement, and even that has to be small-scale, private, and/or sardonic.

The scientist in him understands that he is not responsible for his mother's suicide and has made an uneasy peace with himself over it even while still looking for an answer that just isn't there. The confused, hurting little boy in him will never, ever stop laying the blame at his own feet.

He used to have three people he trusts completely. Then, there were two. Now there's only one, and it's me.

He really did moon the Queen of England. That was not a lie.

Most people see just the narcissistic, arrogant, megalomaniacal Lightman. That's the way he likes it. It keeps them from seeing the man behind the curtain, the man pulling all the levers. Not that he isn't narcissistic, arrogant and megalomaniacal. He is. But there's a lot more to him than that. A lot more.

Cal isn't just a good father. He is possibly the best father I've ever known. He's far from perfect; he makes mistakes. But he loves Emily with an unmatched ferocity and dedication. It's so cliche to say, "There's nothing he wouldn't do for her"; but in Cal's case, it's absolutely true. If I were going to choose a father for a child of my own, I'd choose Cal.

He doesn't hate sweets; he's just particular about them. He likes ice cream. He likes Turkish Delight. He likes shortbread cookies (biscuits, whatever), and he dunks them in his tea. He comes a _little_ unhinged when he mis-times the dunking, and the shortbread breaks apart in his tea. He also likes crepes, though he will deny it to the death if anyone catches him eating them. I did, once. He was so embarrassed. Actual red-faced, flustered, legitimate embarrassment. For him, it was as horrifying a moment as it would've been for anyone else being caught watching porn. We never speak of it. To this day, if I even _utter_ the word 'crepe' in his presence, he practically soils himself in fear that I'm about to out him.

He pretends to be oblivious to what it takes to keep the Group afloat, but I know he knows. He keeps close tabs on the finances though he doesn't have the head for numbers that I do. He gets it, though; and on a high level, he appreciates the beauty of a well-defined bottom line. He trusts that I know what I'm doing in that regard, and I think he kinda gets off on covertly watching me do it. He's twisted like that.

He isn't the commitment-phobe that most people imagine. Well, yes and no. He _was_ married, remember; so he _has_ committed before. It's kind of like with sweets. He doesn't dislike commitment per se; he's just very, very particular. And given the way his marriage ended, is it all that surprising that he's a little skittish now where relationships are concerned? So, yes, he's kind of afraid of commitment or rather of making the wrong commitment; but once he...commits to commit, he will be unwavering. Of this, I have absolutely no doubt.

Alec once came home with a black eye and told me he got it from walking into a low-hanging light fixture while texting with his boss. I knew he was lying, obviously. Even if I didn't see the telltale micro-expressions all over his face as he lied or hear it in his voice, the little fact that it happened within just a few hours of Cal finding me crying in my office because Alec and I had been fighting again - over losing Sophie (and Alec not wanting to talk about it and me needing to...and Alec blaming me) - was all the tip-off I needed. Cal thought he masked it well enough how angry he was when he left my office that night. I read him so much more easily sometimes than he realizes. Especially when it comes to me.

He loves me. Not just as his best friend, either. He is _in_ love with me. He knows that I know, too; but it's just easier for him to believe that I don't know or that he isn't sure. He wants to be in a relationship with me, a long-term one. Maybe even a permanent one. Honestly, I'm not even sure how I feel about that. I mean, on the one hand, I do love him. _Of course_, I love him. He's my best friend, but he's been more than that for a long time. For all intents and purposes, we're practically married as it is. We do everything together except, well, the obvious. We have a mortgage together (the Group's building lease counts). We pay bills together (ok, that's mostly me, but they're in both our names). We've spent more time together than apart in the past ten years, more time with one another than we did with our spouses (that should shame me but somehow doesn't and likely accounts for, at least in part, what helped our respective marriages crumble). I like to think we've even sort of raised Emily through her tween and teen years together, in a manner of speaking. I know she isn't mine, but still. So, there's all this history between us. And it's Cal...it's comfortable even when it's uncomfortable because it's so familiar and safe. Even when he's being an ass, I know that - in the end - he'll never let me down. Not in the big ways. He will always have my back, and I'll always have his. Then, on the other hand...I just don't know. I don't know if I can..._take_ him. I don't know if I can handle Lightman Unleashed. Right now, I get the guarded (semi-guarded) version. If we're together? If the mask comes off and the walls come down, am I strong enough for that? I honestly don't know. But I think I need to figure it out pretty soon, because I think he's pretty close to figuring it out. And once he does, he will come at me with all guns blazing, and that is something I _know_ I'm not strong enough to stand against.

That pug he had called Isabel? Named it after his first girlfriend from when he was nine years old. He kind of liked her and so he kissed her (the girl, not the pug) behind the church rectory when a bunch of them were walking home from school one afternoon. She shoved him down and ran off, and he fell into a mud puddle. Everyone saw it and laughed at him. She felt bad about that, and gave him a shortbread cookie (biscuit, whatever) the next day at lunchtime. Came back AND gave him food. She had him hook, line and sinker after that.

He doesn't like boxers; says he can't stand the feeling of "the lads" doing a trapeze act. For this reason, he favors briefs. TMI.

He wet the bed at night until he was seven and a half years old. He was too afraid to get up and walk to the toilet because he was afraid of what he might see. The drunken shouts from his father and sharp cries from his mother and pleas of, "Stop, just please, stop" were enough to keep him rooted to the sodden sheets til morning.

The morning his father discovered Cal was still wetting the bed, he gave Cal a thumping he didn't soon forget. That day, Cal taught himself to do the washing and would get up very early in the morning to wash his sheets and pyjamas whenever the need arose.

He was not quite six years old when he learned to do laundry.

Cal cries. He doesn't do it often, and he doesn't do it when he knows there's anyone else around. He cried when Zoe left him. He cried when Emily left for college. I saw him crying once - just once - on the anniversary of his mother's suicide, as he watched that psych hospital interview of hers for the thousandth time.

He likes Loker. Cal agitates him and picks on him and pushes him and belittles him, but he likes him. All that meanness is his way of showing Loker how much he likes him. Loker only needs to worry if Cal ever _stops_ doing those things, because that means he's lost Cal's interest and his regard.

Cal likes Torres even more. He likes her because she is so much like him, but that's also why they rub each other the wrong way. He also resents her a tiny bit. He resents that she has naturally what he spent years learning to do. That makes her not only _not_ fully appreciate what she can do, he believes; it also makes her reckless with it. Kind of ironic, Lightman viewing anyone else as more reckless than himself. Like I said, she's so much like him.

He once gave Loker's "radical honesty" a try. It lasted 43 minutes. Not one of his more successful experiments.

He has a great sense of humor and a really wonderful laugh. Too bad he doesn't laugh more often.

He has an insanely ticklish spot behind his knee. Shrieks like a little girl if you can pin him and get him there. Also, his hips are ticklish; but that's a dangerous spot because the response is a lot different than the spot behind the knee. Let's just leave it at that.

When he has had an especially stressful day, he stops at the kennels on his way home and plays with the dogs. Emily told me this one. She says it's like he turns into Mowgli; he gets out there with the dogs and just becomes one of them. I'm not sure I could have ever envisioned it if it weren't for the video she showed me on her phone. Cal rolling around and fighting for a ball - that was weird and priceless.

He's a West Ham supporter. He hates Arsenal. HATES. I don't know why for sure. Something about them always trying to walk it in, whatever that means.

He doesn't like to watch the Olympics. He doesn't get what the big deal is and has no qualms about telling you so.

The number of scotches it takes before his walls crumble and the mask drops and his inhibitions around me go out the window: eight.

The number of scotches it takes before he loses consciousness after a few minutes: also eight.

He is an incredible kisser.

He doesn't snore unless he's sick.

He is a fantastic cook, but his repertoire is limited to curries mostly (unless you count beans on toast).

He sings in the shower. He's not bad. He's not going to win a Grammy but not bad.

The color yellow irritates him to an irrational degree.

He has seen Casablanca 27 times.

His mother made him take clarinet lessons when he was eight. He hated it. She let him quit after some older boys followed him after a lesson one day and decided to play cricket with him as the ball and his clarinet as the bat.

He likes to hold babies; he likes it nearly as much as any woman I've ever known. And if he thinks no one can hear him, he will talk babytalk at them.

He can't eat with chopsticks. I tried to teach him. He lost patience with it and just ended up spearing the food. Aggressively.

He's afraid I'll leave him. He keeps pushing to see if he will eventually find the tipping point. He can be such an idiot.

He hates bagels. He also hates raisins. Raisin bagels come straight from hell itself, he says.

After his run-in with Martin Walker - after being water-boarded more times than I care to think about - Cal wasn't able to shower or have a bath for two full months. He washed himself at his sink with a damp washcloth. He was furious with Emily for telling me. But after he stopped being pissed off and actually listened to me, he did take my recommendation that he talk to someone about his PTSD. That's what it was. So he did talk to someone about it. A therapist, not me. He eventually told me about the nightmares, though. Those, he said, went on way beyond two months. On the outside, at work, he carried on like everything was fine; but inside...it took him a long time to get over that one. That case left a mark on him.


	2. Cal's List

She likes chocolate pudding at 10 in the morning and orange slushies at any time of the day.

She is a fan of Italian ice and is partial to grape.

She looks pretty damn sexy with a purple tongue.

She will eat anything if it's made of chocolate or covered in chocolate. I have tested this theory.

She has eaten a large bag of peanut M&Ms in one sitting and considered it "lunch".

She can hold her liquor pretty well. (for a girl)

Her middle name is Elizabeth.

One bottle of McCallan's, and the better part of her better judgment goes right out the window.

She's a fantastic kisser.

Pink is her favourite colour.

Whenever she wears that vibrant pink dress, she goes commando. Does it to avoid VPL, doubtless. Not that I really care what the reason is; I just like the result. It's very snug, that dress. Does she seriously think commando would go unnoticed by me?

She's not a spendthrift, by any means. However, she does own six pairs of Jimmy Choo shoes. Six. It's her vice, her kryptonite. She's can't help it.

She understands what it is to have an alcoholic parent. Her mother didn't knock her about like my father did to me; instead, she got the opposite end of the spectrum: absenteeism. Her mother wasn't there for her while Gillian was growing up, not in any of the ways a girl needs a mother. For example, her father had to be the one to have "The Talk" with her about boys and sex and birth control and all that when she was 14 years old. What teenage girl wants to have that sort of conversation with her father, eh? But Gillian's mother was _never_ there for her. She set the example for Gillian, though; it's where Gill learned to be there for everyone else. It's what made her the woman she is today.

Her mother died when she was 27. She didn't go to the funeral. She still has mixed feelings about that.

At any given time, Gill has always had more photos of my daughter in her office than Zoe has in hers.

Even while she was still married to Alec, Gill had more photos of the two of us together than she had of her and Alec together. I have always been simultaneously aroused and alarmed by this knowledge.

She is a far better liar than I ever gave her credit for. In fact, she might be better than me. Well, maybe not _better_ than me but nearly as good when it's down to brass tacks.

That night her home was broken into by those Covington kids - when Torres' sister was with her - it really shook her up. Normally, she's very strong. She's one of the strongest people I know; but for whatever reason, that really got at her. She struggled with that one. Cried a bit. Tried not to, but... I joked with her about being a crybaby, trying to lighten her mood and it sort of worked. Initially. After Torres left to go look for Ava, though, and it was only Gill and me again... I'm just glad I could be there for her that night. There for her in _all_ the ways she needed me. I've never regretted any of them, and I don't think she has, either (even though we've never really talked about it afterward...because straight away, didn't Captain bloody America just swoop right in?)

She has more romance novels than she has psychology books. Shameful. One wonders what her true field of study and passion in life really is.

She has a very faint birthmark on her lower back (right side, just above her waistline) that looks vaguely like Cyprus.

She is subject to both nocturnal bruxism and occasional somnambulism. She told me she has been diagnosed on both fronts and received treatments.

She talks in her sleep. This one, she didn't tell me. Not directly.

She really _has_ always wanted to be tied up; that was not a lie, and it wasn't an act.

She hasn't got any siblings, but she has got a first cousin who's like a sister to her. It's been ages since they've seen one another, but they still try to talk once a week.

She likes orchids and lilies, but her favourite flowers are tulips.

She enjoys basketball to an obscene degree. It's dangerous to be anywhere in her vicinity when she's watching the Final Four.

She's the reason brackets are banned at The Lightman Group, following the unfortunate Big Ten Incident of '08. March Madness, indeed.

She keeps her cds in alphabetical order according to artist. Each artist's work she has ordered by release date. She doesn't even care that cds are considered outmoded now. She loves her cd collection.

She has a similar system for her DVDs. She's very uptight about the order.

In the early days, back when we first started our company, we nearly went under twice. She's the one who saved us both times. I couldn't have lasted without her. The wall may have my name on it, but the truth is that the place wouldn't exist today without her.

After Zoe left me, I was a wreck. Gillian stuck by me even when I treated her like shit. I didn't change my shirt or shower for...I can't remember how long. And I was drinking too much, as well. Anyone else might've cut their losses and walked away, but not her. She let me have it, proper good. Brought me to my senses. Saved me again, I guess you could say. Reminded me, too, that my daughter still deserved a decent father and that I had no right to allow Zoe to change that.

She's never quite recovered entirely from the heartache of losing Sophie. She may only have been a mother for 57 days, but that was enough to make it take root.

She would have been a wonderful mother. She's always been a sort of second one to Em. Taught her to bake. Talked her through some tough teenage stuff when dad just wouldn't do and her real mum was just too close to the situation.

Baking is her release. She bakes when she's nervous. She bakes when she's angry. She bakes when she's frustrated. It's a pent-up energy thing. Then she complains about all the calories. What she really needs to do instead of bake is just have a good shag. Burns calories instead of adding them. Or better yet, bake and then shag. Best of all worlds. She didn't seem to appreciate the suggestion when I made it. I think she might've been considering the suggestion, though. Not sure; I've always had trouble reading her.

She saw Titanic 14 times at the cinema. She isn't even bothered that it's wildly historically inaccurate. She says it's horribly romantic and makes her swoon. Swoon? I mean, really.

She likes those fancy, excessively sugary coffees with all the flavourings in them.

When she drinks tea, she takes milk and four sugars. You can practically stand a spoon up in it.

I can tell when she's cross with me because she orders Chinese chicken dumplings for lunch and eats them merrily in front of me, knowing full well it flies in the face of my no-eating-meat-I-can't-see interdiction.

She was really starting to fall for Burns. Gianetti. Atherton. Whatever his name was. Bloody idiot that he was. If I was any decent sort of friend, I wouldn't have interfered with their relationship, I suppose.

She is possibly the most ridiculously optimistic person I've ever known in my entire life.

She could walk out the door and land a job making good money doing respectable work, just like that. She is _that_ good. Instead, she stays here doing this with me. It can be dangerous, thankless, tedious work. The hours are shit and leave you no time for an actual life outside the office. She's either a lunatic, a masochist or completely in love with me. Possible she's all three. If I'm lucky, she's all three.

xXxXxXxXxXx

FIN

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**_A/N: So, that's it. At first, I was really bothered by the fact that Gillian's list about Cal is almost 1,000 words longer than Cal's list about Gillian. Then, after agonising over it for a couple weeks, it dawned on me that it was merely fitting. Cal never was as good at using his words as Gillian was. There's no reason that limitation shouldn't carry over to list-making. ;)_**

**_And that, my friends, is how we justify. Thank you and goodnight!_**

**_Please let me know what you thought of it, especially of the completely fabricated bits. Too far off-base? At least moderately believable? Thanks in advance for reviews!_**


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